August 27, 2008, 6:47 PM CT

Yellowstone's Ancient Supervolcano

The geysers of Yellowstone National Park owe their eistence to the "Yellowstone hotspot"--a region of molten rock buried deep beneath Yellowstone, geologists have found.

But how hot is this "hotspot," and what's causing it?

In an effort to find out, Derek Schutt of Colorado State University and Ken Dueker of the University of Wyoming took the hotspot's temperature.

The researchers published results of their research, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s division of earth sciences, in the August, 2008, issue of the journal Geology.

"Yellowstone is located atop of one of the few large volcanic hotspots on Earth," said Schutt. "But though the hot material is a volcanic plume, it's cooler than others of its kind, such as one in Hawaii".

When a supervolcano last erupted at this spot more than 600,000 years ago, its plume covered half of today's United States with volcanic ash. Details of the cause of the Yellowstone supervolcano's periodic eruptions through history are still unknown.

Thanks to new seismometers in the Yellowstone area, however, researchers are obtaining new data on the hotspot.

Past research observed that in rocks far beneath southern Idaho and northwestern Wyoming, seismic energy from distant earthquakes slows down considerably......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

August 21, 2008, 8:19 PM CT

Earthquakes may endanger New York

A study by a group of prominent seismologists suggests that a pattern of subtle but active faults makes the risk of earthquakes to the New York City area substantially greater than formerly believed. Among other things, they say that the controversial Indian Point nuclear power plants, 24 miles north of the city, sit astride the previously unidentified intersection of two active seismic zones. The paper appears in the current issue of the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America at http://www.bssaonline.org/cgi/reprint/98/4/1696.

A number of faults and a few mostly modest quakes have long been known around New York City, but the research casts them in a new light. The researchers say the insight comes from sophisticated analysis of past quakes, plus 34 years of new data on tremors, most of them perceptible only by modern seismic instruments. The evidence charts unseen but potentially powerful structures whose layout and dynamics are only now coming clearer, say the scientists. All are based at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, which runs the network of seismometers that monitors most of the northeastern United States: http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/LCSN/.

Lead author Lynn R. Sykes said the data show that large quakes are infrequent around New York in comparison to more active areas like California and Japan, but that the risk is high, because of the overwhelming concentration of people and infrastructure. "The research raises the perception both of how common these events are, and, specifically, where they may occur," he said. "It's an extremely populated area with very large assets." Sykes, who has studied the region for four decades, is known for his early role in establishing the global theory of plate tectonics......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

August 20, 2008, 5:47 PM CT

Research Agenda For Environmental Mercury

Embracing the belief that an interdisciplinary and coordinated research agenda can have a profound impact on advancing science and influencing policy, a group of experts has developed a roadmap for improving our understanding of how mercury moves through the marine ecosystem and into the fish we eat.

Members of Dartmouth's Toxic Metals Research Program convened the group of 43 leading scientists, environmental regulators, and public health experts in November 2006 to set priorities for a research and biomonitoring agenda that can inform environmental regulation and public health policy. Their report is reported in the current issue of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

The group put a priority on monitoring and research across habitats with an integrated approach that considers the poorly understood links among marine sources, biotransfer processes, and bioaccumulation mechanisms that put humans at risk of exposure to mercury. For example, one unanswered question: does the toxic form of mercury produced and bioaccumulated in coastal ecosystems end up in fish such as tuna caught in the open ocean?

"We are intimately connected to the ocean ecosystem," says Celia Chen, a research associate professor of biology at Dartmouth and the lead author of the paper. "For example, seafood is one of the few wild foods still consumed by large numbers of people. Though we know that the mercury found in marine fish and shellfish poses a threat to humans - not to mention the ecosystem itself - we know very little about the physical and geochemical processes that link mercury in the atmosphere to the toxic form found in seafood"......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

August 20, 2008, 4:55 PM CT

Continued Breakup Of Two Of Greenland's Largest Glaciers

Scientists monitoring daily satellite images here of Greenland's glaciers have discovered break-ups at two of the largest glaciers in the last month.

They expect that part of the Northern hemisphere's longest floating glacier will continue to disintegrate within the next year.

A massive 11-square-mile (29-square-kilometer) piece of the Petermann Glacier in northern Greenland broke away between July 10th and by July 24th. The loss to that glacier is equal to half the size of Manhattan Island. The last major ice loss to Petermann occurred when the glacier lost 33 square miles (86 square kilometers) of floating ice between 2000 and 2001.

Petermann has a floating section of ice 10 miles (16 kilometers) wide and 50 miles (80.4 kilometers) long which covers 500 square miles (1,295 square kilometers).

What worries Jason Box, an associate professor of geography at Ohio State, and colleagues, graduate students Russell Benson and David Decker, all with the Byrd Polar Research Center, even more about the latest images is what appears to be a massive crack further back from the margin of the Petermann Glacier.

That crack may signal an imminent and much larger breakup.

"If the Petermann glacier breaks up back to the upstream rift, the loss would be as much as 60 square miles (160 square kilometers)," Box said, representing a loss of one-third of the massive ice field......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

July 23, 2008, 5:00 PM CT

Parasites Outweigh Predators

In a study of parasites living in three estuaries on the Pacific coast of California and Baja California, scientists have determined that biomass of these parasites exceeds that of top predators, in some cases by more than 20 times.

Their findings, which could have significant ecological and biomedical implications, appear in this week's issue of the journal Nature.

Biomass is the amount of living matter that exists in a given habitat. It is expressed either as the weight of organisms per unit area or as the volume of organisms per unit volume of habitat.

Until now, researchers have believed that because parasites are microscopic in size they comprised a small fraction of biomass in a habitat, while free-living organisms such as fish, birds and other predators make up the vast majority.

"We quantified the biomass of free-living and parasitic species in three estuaries and discovered that parasites have substantial biomass in these ecosystems," said Armand Kuris, a zoologist at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB), and a lead author of the paper.

"Parasites have as much, or even more, biomass than other important groups of animals--like birds, fish and crabs," said Ryan Hechinger, a marine scientist at UCSB and co-lead author of the paper......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

July 22, 2008, 8:15 PM CT

Outflow from World's Largest River

Nutrients from the Amazon River's outflow spread well beyond the continental shelf and drive carbon cycling in the tropical ocean, say researchers who conducted a multi-year study. They will publish their results this week online in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The scientists discovered a significant and surprising drawdown of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into the tropical ocean by microorganisms living in the Amazon River's outflow. The finding reveals the surprisingly large role of tropical oceans and major rivers in the oceans' total carbon uptake.

"This work has led to an important discovery about the source of nitrogen that fuels the productivity of tropical ocean waters, particularly those into which large rivers flow," said David Garrison, director of the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s biological oceanography program. NSF's Biocomplexity in the Environment program funded the research.

The Amazon River is the largest river in the world by volume; it also has the largest drainage basin on the planet, accounting for some one fifth of Earth's total river flow. Because of its vast dimensions, it's sometimes called "the river sea".

The Amazon River's outflow covers an area more than twice the size of the state of Texas for several months each year, said Ajit Subramaniam, a biological oceanographer at Columbia University and lead author of the PNAS paper. (Subramaniam is currently on leave from Columbia, now serving as a rotating program director at NSF.)......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

July 22, 2008, 8:12 PM CT

System to Forecast Flash Floods

People living near vulnerable creeks and rivers along Colorado's Front Range may soon get advance notice of potentially deadly floods, thanks to a new forecasting system being tested this summer by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo.

Known as the NCAR Front Range Flash Flood Prediction System, it combines detailed atmospheric conditions with information about stream flows to predict floods along specific streams and catchments.

"The goal is to provide improved guidance about the likelihood of a flash flood event a number of minutes out to an hour or two before the waters start rising," says NCAR scientist David Gochis, one of the developers of the new forecasting system. "We want to increase the lead time of a forecast, while decreasing the uncertainty about whether a flood will occur".

Funding to create the system came from the National Science Foundation (NSF), which is NCAR's sponsor, as well as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"This project is an excellent example of using basic research findings to improve forecasts important to saving lives," said Cliff Jacobs, program director in NSF's Division of Atmospheric Sciences.

The Front Range, because of its steep topography and intense summer storms, is uncommonly vulnerable to summertime flash floods. Such floods have claimed the lives of hundreds of people and accounted for hundreds of millions of dollars in damages throughout the region's history......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

July 21, 2008, 9:39 PM CT

Key to saving the world's lakes

After completing one of the longest running experiments ever done on a lake, scientists from the University of Alberta, University of Minnesota and the Freshwater Institute, contend that nitrogen control, in which the European Union and a number of other jurisdictions around the world are investing millions of dollars, is not effective and in fact, may actually increase the problem of cultural eutrophication.

The dramatic rise in cultural eutrophicationthe addition of nutrients to a body of water due to human activity that often causes huge algal blooms, fish kills and other problems in lakes throughout the worldhas resulted from increased deposits of nutrients to lakes, largely from human sewage and agricultural wastes.

For 37 years scientists looked at Lake 227, a small lake in the Canadian Shield at the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA) in Ontario, Canada, and examined the best ways to control the cultural eutrophication process of lakes by varying the levels of phosphorous and nitrogen added to the lake.

"What we found goes against the practices of the European Union and a number of researchers around the world," said David Schindler, professor of ecology at the University of Alberta and one of the leading water scientists in the world. "Controlling nitrogen does not correct the polluted lakes, and in fact, may actually aggravate the problem and make it worse"......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

July 20, 2008, 2:54 PM CT

Saharan dust storms sustain life in Atlantic Ocean

Research at the University of Liverpool has found how Saharan dust storms help sustain life over extensive regions of the North Atlantic Ocean.

Working aboard research vessels in the Atlantic, researchers mapped the distribution of nutrients including phosphorous and nitrogen and investigated how organisms such as phytoplankton are sustained in areas with low nutrient levels.

They observed that plants are able to grow in these regions because they are able to take advantage of iron minerals in Saharan dust storms. This allows them to use organic or 'recycled' material from dead or decaying plants when nutrients such as phosphorous an essential component of DNA in the ocean are low.

Professor George Wolff, from the University's Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences, explains: "We observed that cyanobacteria a type of ancient phytoplankton are significant to the understanding of how ocean deserts can support plant growth. Cyanobacteria need nitrogen, phosphorous and iron in order to grow. They get nitrogen from the atmosphere, but phosphorous is a highly reactive chemical that is scarce in sea water and is not found in the Earth's atmosphere. Iron is present only in tiny amounts in sea water, even though it is one of the most abundant elements on earth......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

July 17, 2008, 9:32 PM CT

Digital cameras, remote satellites measure crop water demand

Horticultural crops account for almost 50% of crop sales in the United States, and these crops are carefully managed to ensure good quality. But more information is needed about the crops' growth and response to seasonal and climatic changes so that management practices such as irrigation can be precisely scheduled. Existing research can be difficult to generalize because of variations in crops, planting densities, and cultural practices.

Determining growth stage, size, and water needs are particularly important for horticultural crops because most crops are grown in limited water environments and require irrigation. The measurement of "canopy light interception" is a primary means of determining water and irrigation needs. Fractional canopy cover (CC) is a relatively easily measured property that is a good indicator of light interception. Canopy cover, the percent of the soil surface covered by plant foliage, is an important indicator of stage of growth and crop water use in horticultural crops. Methods of using remote sensors to determine canopy cover in major crops have been studied for years, but the studies have not included most horticultural crops.

Thomas J. Trout, Research Leader at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service, along with colleagues from the NASA Earth Science Division, recently published a study that addresses the relationship of remotely sensed normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) relative to canopy cover of several major horticultural crops in commercial fields......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

July 15, 2008, 10:32 PM CT

Corporations Can Profit From Being Environmentally Friendly

Though a number of policymakers have argued that environmental regulations can negatively impact an organization's bottom line, a new study by George Mason University researcher Nicole Darnall shows that companies that develop green production processes can not only offset the costs of regulations, but can also reap further benefits.

The study, which looked at more than 2,600 manufacturing facilities operating in seven different countries, showed that more stringent environmental policies are correlation to diminished company profits. However, organizations that improve their environmental performance by enhancing their internal efficiencies and developing new green products and technologies can offset the cost of regulation or even accrue a net gain.

"The primary reason why the United States and a number of other countries do not have national climate change policy and do not implement more stringent environmental legislation is due to the costs the regulations would impose on firms," says Darnall, assistant professor of environmental science and policy. "The results of this study are important because realizing that these costs can be offset-or eliminated entirely-is further evidence that policymakers could support the advancement of more ambitious environmental policy goals without putting undue financial burdens on corporations"......... Posted by: Tom      Read more         Source

July 15, 2008, 9:35 PM CT

Scattered nature of Wisconsin's woodlands

If a warmer Wisconsin climate causes some northern tree species to disappear in the future, it's easy to imagine that southern species will just expand their range northward as soon as the conditions suit them.

The reality, though, may not be nearly so simple. A model developed by University of Wisconsin-Madison forest ecologists Robert Scheller and David Mladenoff suggests that while certain northern species, such as balsam fir, spruce and jack pine, are likely to decline as the state's climate warms, oaks, hickories and other southern Wisconsin trees will be slow to replace them.

Why? Not only is warming expected to outpace the speed at which southern trees can migrate northward, but barriers to dispersal - especially agricultural lands - will also likely delay their progress, says Mladenoff.

"The result is that northern forest biomass in the future - that is, the standing amount of forest - could decrease, because the trees that are there now will be experiencing less than optimal conditions," he says. "And the southern species aren't going to fill in as quickly as we'd like." He and Scheller report their findings in the current issue of Climate Research

Mladenoff explains that trees "move" into new areas by producing seeds, which are then carried over short distances by wind, birds or mammals. Under the right conditions, dispersed seeds then grow into seedlings and eventually mature trees, which produce their own seeds to start the process all over again......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

July 15, 2008, 9:29 PM CT

Future snowmelt in West twice as early as expected

As per a new study, global.

warming could lead to larger changes in snowmelt in the western United States than was previously thought, possibly increasing wildfire risk and creating new water management challenges for agriculture, ecosystems and urban populations.

Researchers, including a Purdue University professor of earth and atmospheric sciences, discovered that a critical surface temperature feedback is twice as strong as what had been projected by earlier studies.

The high-resolution climate model used by the team was better able to reproduce the complex topography of the western United States and capture details of the effect of snow cover on the climate system, as well as the historical record of runoff.

The findings will be published in an upcoming issue of Geophysical Research Letters and are now available online at the journal's Web site.

Noah Diffenbaugh, senior author of the paper and an associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Purdue, said the influence of melting snow on regional climate is far greater than that of increased greenhouse gases alone.

"The heat trapping from elevated greenhouse gases triggers the warming, but the additional warming caused by the loss of snow is what really creates the big changes in surface runoff," said Diffenbaugh, who also is a member of Purdue's Climate Change Research Center. "Researchers have known about this general effect for years. The big surprise here is how much the complex topography plays a role, essentially doubling the threat to water resources in the West"......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

July 14, 2008, 5:12 PM CT

Potential Effects Of Volcanic Eruptions

For the first time, scientists have taken a detailed look at what lies beneath all of Iceland's volcanoes - and found a world far more complex than they ever imagined.

They mapped an elaborate maze of magma chambers - work that could one day help researchers better understand how earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur in Iceland and elsewhere in the world.

Knowing where magma chambers are located is a key first step to understanding the chemical composition of the molten rock that is flowing within them - and of the gases that are released when a volcano erupts, explained Daniel Kelley, doctoral student in earth sciences at Ohio State University.

Kelley and Michael Barton, professor of earth sciences at Ohio State, have determined that the volcanoes in Iceland are likely to have explosive eruptions that shoot debris far into the atmosphere. That's because the magma moves very quickly to the surface from deep within the magma chambers. Fast-moving magma propels sulfur and ash out of a volcano and high into the atmosphere, where it can spread around the planet.

"One of the reasons we're trying to understand these volcanoes is to determine exactly what the chances are of a large eruption there. We know that a large eruption in Iceland would not only have devastating local effects, but potential global effects as well - by affecting the climate," Barton said......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

July 14, 2008, 5:00 PM CT

China can't fully fix air quality problem for Olympics

The outlook for air quality in Beijing during the Olympics is borderline, and there's little that the Chinese government can do to improve it. That's the conclusion drawn by a University of Rhode Island atmospheric chemist who analyzed pollution data collected regularly for the last five years by Chinese scientists.

"There is both a local component and a regional component to the pollutants that cause unhealthy air in Beijing, and the severity of their effects are driven by weather fronts and winds," said Kenneth Rahn, a retired URI professor who travels to China several times a year to help researchers at Tsinghua University interpret their data. "Since it's controlled by the weather, it will be a matter of luck whether the bad air periods correspond with days of outdoor Olympic events".

Locally generated pollutants in Beijing consist primarily of organic matter from transportation, factories and cooking, while regional sources of pollution include ammonium sulfates and ammonium nitrates from coal-burning power plants, industry and transportation sources, which are easily transported long distances in the atmosphere, as per Rahn.

"The air pollution pattern in Beijing is unusual, with high and low concentrations that can differ by a factor of 50 to 100," Rahn said. "When the winds shift to the north and bring in clear air from Mongolia, the air can be relatively clean, though that's not the norm during the summer. But when winds are from the south, where there is a large population and lots of industrial activity, the air can be especially hazardous"......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

July 10, 2008, 9:27 PM CT

Wilkins Ice Shelf hanging by its last thread

The Wilkins Ice Shelf is experiencing further disintegration that is threatening the collapse of the ice bridge connecting the shelf to Charcot Island. Since the connection to the island in the image centre helps to stabilise the ice shelf, it is likely the break-up of the bridge will put the remainder of the ice shelf at risk.

This animation, comprised of images acquired by Envisat's Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) between 30 May and 9 July 2008, shows the break-up event which began on the east (right) rather than the on west (left) like the prior event that occurred last month. By 8 July, a fracture that could open the ice bridge was visible.

As per the image acquired on 7 July 2008, Dr Matthias Braun from the Center for Remote Sensing of Land Surfaces at Bonn University estimates the area lost on the Wilkins Ice Shelf during this break-up event is about 1350 km² with a rough estimate of 500 to 700 km² in addition being lost if the bridge to Charcot Island collapses.

This break-up is puzzling to researchers because it has occurred in the Southern Hemispheric winter and does not have characteristics similar to two earlier events that occurred in 2008, which were comparable to the break-up of the Larsen-A and -B ice shelves.

"The scale of rifting in the newly-removed areas seems larger, and the pieces are moving out as large bergs and not toppled, finely-divided ice melange," said Ted Scambos from the National Snow and Ice Data Center who uses ASAR images to track the area......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

July 10, 2008, 8:38 PM CT

Long Wait Before Next China Quake?

A new analysis of the setting for May's devastating earthquake in China shows that the quake resulted from faults with little seismic activity--and that similar events in that area occur, on average, only once every 2,000 to 10,000 years. However, geologists caution that because earthquakes can sometimes occur in clusters, people should still be wary of another possible large-scale earthquake.

Clark Burchfiel and Leigh Royden, geologists at MIT, have done extensive research in China for more than two decades but had found no hints that suggested such a large earthquake might strike the area.

They and his colleagues, including MIT's Robert van der Hilst and Bradford Hager, have published a paper analyzing the causes of the quake in the recent issue of the journal GSA Today.

"This is an excellent example of how long-term support of basic research can provide valuable insights into the cause of a major natural disaster," says Leonard Johnson, program director in the National Science Foundation's Division of Earth Sciences, which funded the research.

The magnitude 7.9 quake struck Sichuan province on May 12, 2008, at around noon, which may have increased the human death toll because a number of children were at school. The school buildings turned out to be particularly vulnerable to collapse because of poor construction......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

July 10, 2008, 8:28 PM CT

Methane Formation in the Oceans

A new pathway for methane formation in the oceans has been discovered, with significant potential for advancing our understanding of greenhouse gas production on Earth, researchers believe.

A paper on the findings, reported in the July 2008, issue of the journal Nature Geoscience, reveals that decomposition of a phosphorus-containing compound called methylphosphonate may be responsible for an unexpected supersaturation of methane in the oceans' oxygen-rich surface waters.

Through the National Science Foundation (NSF) Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education (C-MORE), oceanographer David Karl of the University of Hawaii and microbiologist Edward DeLong of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, co-authors of the Nature Geoscience paper, are working to learn how and when microbes turn on and off their methane production genes in response to methane precursors like methylphosphonate.

"This newly recognized pathway of methane formation needs to be incorporated into our thinking about global climate change," says Karl.

Methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide on a per weight basis. Eventhough the volume of methane in the atmosphere is less than carbon dioxide, methane is much more efficient at trapping the long wavelength radiation that keeps our planet habitable. It's also responsible, therefore, for increased greenhouse warming......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

July 8, 2008, 6:43 PM CT

How intense will storms get?

A new mathematical model indicates that dust devils, water spouts, tornadoes, hurricanes and cyclones are all born of the same mechanism and will intensify as climate change warms the Earth's surface.

The new equation, developed by University of Michigan atmospheric and planetary scientist Nilton Renno, could allow researchers to more accurately calculate the maximum expected intensity of a spiraling storm based on the depth of the troposphere and the temperature and humidity of the air in the storm's path. The troposphere is the lowest layer of Earth's atmosphere.

This equation improves upon current methods, Renno says, because it takes into account the energy feeding the storm system and the full measure of friction slowing it down. Current thermodynamic models make assumptions about these variables, rather than include actual quantities.

"This model allows us to relate changes in storms' intensity to environmental conditions," Renno said. "It shows us that climate change could lead to increases in how efficient convective vortices are and how much energy they transform into wind. Fueled by warmer and moister air, there will be stronger and deeper storms in the future that reach higher into the atmosphere".

Renno and research scientist Natalia Andronova used the model to quantify how intense they expect storms to get based on current climate predictions. For every 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit that the Earth's surface temperature warms, the intensity of storms could increase by at least a few percent, the researchers say. For an intense storm, that could translate into a 10 percent increase in destructive power......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

July 3, 2008, 9:00 PM CT

Extended cyclone relief efforts aided from space

Earth observation satellites have provided vital information to relief workers in Myanmar throughout a especially long crisis response window following the devastating Cyclone Nargis that hit the country on 2 and 3 May 2008.

Immediately after the disaster, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) asked the International Charter on 'Space and Major Disasters', referred to as 'the Charter', for support by providing immediate crisis mapping of the affected areas.

Following the request, rapid mapping products were created with Earth observation (EO) satellite acquisitions taken in the wake of the event to derive an estimation of the flood surge impact and other damage information to help plan emergency response operations.

Damage maps were able to be created quickly because the RESPOND project, which delivers satellite mapping for disaster reduction and humanitarian aid, had delivered EO-derived topographic maps of Myanmar a month before the disaster.

This activity was part of a project to help local communities reduce exposure to disaster risks. This enabled the RESPOND team to compare up-to-date basic maps before the disaster with satellite images acquired during or after the cyclone impact.

Thanks to the Charter more than 10 different sensors - radar and optical - from several EO missions provided more than 60 satellite images, which were used to derive 29 damage maps......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

June 18, 2008, 8:44 PM CT

Ocean temperatures and sea level increases

New research suggests that ocean temperature and associated sea level increases between 1961 and 2003 were 50 percent larger than estimated in the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.

The results are published in the June 19 edition of the journal Nature. An international team of researchers, including Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory climate scientist Peter Gleckler, compared climate models with improved observations that show sea levels rose by 1.5 millimeters per year in the period from 1961-2003. That equates to an approximately 2½-inch increase in ocean levels in a 42-year span.

The ocean warming and thermal expansion rates are more than 50 percent larger than prior estimates for the upper 300 meters of oceans.

The research corrected for small but systematic biases recently discovered in the global ocean observing system, and uses statistical techniques that "infill" information in data-sparse regions. The results increase scientists' confidence in ocean observations and further demonstrate that climate models simulate ocean temperature variability more realistically than previously thought.

"This is important for the climate modeling community because it demonstrates that the climate models used for assessing sea-level rise and ocean warming tie in closely with the observed results," Gleckler said......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

June 16, 2008, 9:28 PM CT

Lower Midwest braces for flood onslaught

Residents of the central and southern Midwest are crossing their fingers, saying their prayers, planning evacuations, and in some cases filling sandbags in preparation for the excessive water ravishing communities in Iowa and Wisconsin.

"The flood wave is propagating down the Mississippi River towards St. Louis at about the pace of a brisk walk," said Robert E. Criss, Ph.D., professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. "Some areas north of St. Louis in Missouri and southern Iowa are bracing for the second worst flood in their history. This is serious water."

Criss is a geologist. One of his specialties is hydrogeology. He said that the floodwaters are projected to crest at St. Louis at 38 feet on June 22 or 23, marking the 11th time since the Civil War that St. Louis has reached that flood stage. During the flood of 1993 waters at St. Louis crested at 49.6 feet.

The Missouri River at St. Charles on June 13 was 27.6 feet That's close to three feet above flood stage, and it is still rising.

"The water already is in place," Criss noted. "Projecting it downstream doesn't rely on weather predictions."

Indeed, more precipitation is the wild card.

"More rainfall is only going to make problems worse," Criss said. "If the region gets significantly more precipitation during the week of June 16, it could make a place like Winfield, Mo. surpass even its flood of '93 totals."........ Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

June 10, 2008, 9:06 PM CT

Rapid Retreat of Arctic Sea Ice

The rate of climate warming over northern Alaska, Canada, and Russia could more than triple during periods of rapid sea ice loss, as per a new study led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The findings raise concerns about the thawing of permafrost, or permanently frozen soil, and the potential consequences for sensitive ecosystems, human infrastructure, and the release of additional greenhouse gases.

"Our study suggests that, if sea-ice continues to contract rapidly over the next several years, Arctic land warming and permafrost thaw are likely to accelerate," says lead author David Lawrence of NCAR.

The study, by researchers from NCAR and the National Snow and Ice Data Center, will be published Friday in Geophysical Research Letters. It was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and by the National Science Foundation, NCAR's sponsor.

The research was spurred in part by events last summer, when the extent of Arctic sea ice shrank to more than 30 percent below average, setting a modern-day record. From August to October last year, air temperatures over land in the western Arctic were also uncommonly warm, reaching more than 4 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above the 1978-2006 average and raising the question of whether or not the uncommonly low sea-ice extent and warm land temperatures were related......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

June 3, 2008, 10:14 PM CT

Alaska Space Grant program launches B.E.A.R.

AlaskaThe Alaska Space Grant Program and the Arctic Amateur Radio Club formed the Balloon Experiment And Research Programor B.E.A.R. for shortin December 2007. The program's aim was to launch a high altitude balloon equipped with two amateur radio signals and more from Poker Flat Research Range in the spring of 2008. On May 10, BEAR participants met to inflate and launch their first balloon. It flew as high as 95,327 feet above Fairbanks in three hours, capturing more than 100 photos and video during its flight.

The balloon had three payloads in tow, all built and designed by Dan Wietchy of the Fairbanks-based Arctic Amateur Radio Club. The packages performed well, allowing B.E.A.R. participants to track and document the balloon's flight, and its subsequent recovery. The balloon was found less than seven miles from where it was launched at Poker Flat Research Range.

The Alaska Space Grant Program intends to expand B.E.A.R. into a larger program that will allow University of Alaska Fairbanks students the opportunity to fly payloads of their own design, and to conduct atmospheric research in the spring and fall. Faculty from the Geophysical Institute already are interested in designing graduate-level courses that will take advantage of this new arena to bolster hands-on student research......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

May 22, 2008, 10:03 PM CT

Pacific coast turning more acidic

An international team of researchers surveying the waters of the continental shelf off the West Coast of North America has discovered for the first time high levels of acidified ocean water within 20 miles of the shoreline, raising concern for marine ecosystems from Canada to Mexico.

Scientists aboard the Wecoma, an Oregon State University research vessel, also discovered that this corrosive, acidified water that is being upwelled seasonally from the deeper ocean is probably 50 years old, suggesting that future ocean acidification levels will increase since atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide have increased rapidly over the past half century.

Results of the study were published this week in Science Express.

When the upwelled water was last at the surface, it was exposed to an atmosphere with much lower CO₂ (carbon dioxide) levels than todays, pointed out Burke Hales, an associate professor in the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University and an author on the Science study. The water that will upwell off the coast in future years already is making its undersea trek toward us, with ever-increasing levels of carbon dioxide and acidity.

The coastal ocean acidification train has left the station, Hales added, and there not much we can do to derail it......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

May 21, 2008, 9:48 PM CT

Earth may hide a lethal carbon cache

CARBON buried in the Earth could ultimately determine the fate of our planets atmosphere. So concluded a pioneering meeting last week about the Earths long-neglected deep carbon cycle.

Carbon is locked away down in the Earths crust: in magma and old carbonate rocks buried by plate tectonics, in fossil fuels like coal and oil, and in ice lattices beneath the ocean bed. It has long been assumed that this carbon was largely cut off from the surface, and could safely be ignored when analysing the effect of greenhouse gases on climate.

Now it seems there may be much more deep carbon ready to spew out than we thought.

This realisation could have profound implications for our climate, argues Robert Hazen of the Carnegie Institution, who organised the meeting at the institutions Geophysical Laboratory in Washington DC. We may be on the verge of a transformational momenta glimpse of new, unexplored scientific territory, he says.

Perhaps the greatest threat of an unexpected release of carbon from the deep comes from an indirect effect of human-made CO2. Global warming could destabilise some deep carbon reserves, notably in clathrates - ice lattices which are found beneath the ocean floor and continental permafrost, and even under freshwater lakes like Lake Baikal in Siberia (pictured). These ice structures may hold trillions of tonnes of methane......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source